


We Can’t Have Faith For Everybody

by Hale13



Category: Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Amputation, Blood and Injury, Dead May Parker (Spider-Man), F/M, Flash Thompson Needs a Hug, Flash Thompson Redemption, Hurt Peter Parker, Identity Reveal, Injury Recovery, Irondad, Kidnapping, Major Character Injury, Michelle Jones Needs a Hug, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Peter Parker Whump, Protective Michelle Jones, Protective Peter Parker, Protective Tony Stark, Recovery, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Torture, Whump, spiderson
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-28
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-12 04:48:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29754309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hale13/pseuds/Hale13
Summary: It starts like this:MJ and Flash, hands cuffed to each other and Peter, wrists and ankles held to the wall by thick metal cuffs and dangling in a way that’s surely to leave his shoulders aching.The first week Peter, verbally, gives as good as he gets.  He never lashes out physically and always does what their captors want the first time they ask.  He still spends most of his time that he is in the cell chained uncomfortably to the wall.  After the first week someone, apparently, decides that Peter is weak enough from the constant abuse and malnourishment that he is no longer chained up after his sessions; just dropped unceremoniously onto the dirty floor and left for MJ and Flash to care for.Or:Peter, Michelle and Flash get kidnapped to get information on Tony Stark.
Relationships: Michelle Jones/Peter Parker, Ned Leeds & Peter Parker, Peter Parker & Flash Thompson, Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Comments: 34
Kudos: 164





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This story came to me in the middle of work on one of the worst shifts I have worked in months when all of my patients kept dying. The prologue and first chapter just flowed out and I couldn’t help but continue. I’ve gotten up through chapter 3 written and plan to post weekly until finished. I’m looking at a tentative 10 chapters but I’m pretty terrible at planning so it may be a little less or a little more. We’ll just have to see.
> 
> TW for this chapter: Waterboarding, kidnapping, referenced torture, referenced blood and injury, general sadness.
> 
> Enjoy your whump! I promise some comfort is coming in a few chapters!

Michelle runs her fingers through Peter’s damp hair as he coughs and chokes, leaning over the bucket she has helpfully placed beside the bed, retching up mouthfuls of water and rasping gurgling breaths between hacks. There isn’t too much she can do at this stage other than hold Peter up so he doesn’t fall and mutter meaningless platitudes under her breath. Michelle has never been a touchy-freely platitude person so some of them fall flat but she likes to think she has improved some since their kidnapping.

She doesn’t really remember being snatched, just that she and Peter and Flash were cleaning up after an AcaDec practice and that Peter was more jumpy than normal. That Flash was making fun of how twitchy Peter was, how he kept shivering and looking over his shoulder and then they were in a truck and then a warehouse and then this cell with Peter chained tightly against the wall, a gun against her head as Flash cried silently next to her in a similar position. And a demand being made.

Michelle and Flash’s safety for Peter’s compliance. 

You can probably guess the choice he made.

And now, weeks later, they don’t even have to threaten Michelle or Flash; Peter is too weak from constant torture, from too little food and sleep and water to put up much of a fight. In her lap he finally is able to take a couple aborted, but deep, breaths. His lungs still crackling with the water he inhaled and gurgling up his throat. This isn’t his first time being waterboarded and Michelle is old hat at how to take care of him now. The first time she had freaked out and thought he was dying, she and Flash both crying and begging for help from unwilling security guards.

Now Michelle knows she just has to let him cough up any stray water and, when his lungs sound as bad as they do now, coupage them to help loosen everything up. She just has to be careful; the whip welts from three days ago still haven’t healed completely yet and she knows they still hurt.

“You have to do it harder,” Peter rasps, his voice taking on a vibrato quality from the soft slaps she is giving his back. She grimaces and sets her teeth but does as he asks, bringing her hand down more firmly over his right lung and causing Peter to both flinch and then gurgle before leaning over the bucket to drool out more water.

It takes a few more minutes of Michelle’s careful ministrations before Peter rolls over to press his face into her stomach and pant, too tired to get any more out but his lungs aren’t crackling as bad as they were so Michelle feels better about him not dry drowning and instead tangles her hand back into his hair. Not moving but just holding him and offering support as he calms back down and his breaths even out.

They sit in silence until the door opens and Flash is pushed back into the room. They had taken him close to half and hour ago for his weekly shower and he’s wearing fresh sweats, his plain white t-shirt sticking to his still damp skin and wet around the collar from his hair. Flash scowls back at the guards but makes no other moves against them, glaring at the door as it shuts and working his jaw from side to side. He huffs briefly and then joins Michelle and Peter on the single cot, carefully manhandling Peter’s legs until his calves are in Flash’s lap and Flash can lean back against the wall next to MJ.

Flash is silent but the questioning look on his face speaks volumes _‘did he give it up?’_ to which MJ shakes her head. Whoever took them was looking for revenge on Peter but, since they clearly weren’t as stupid as they could be, they saw an opportunity and were also trying to get leverage on Tony Stark. Michelle knows there have been ransom notes and pictures and videos to try to get money or weapons or who the fuck knows what but Peter hadn’t given anything up. And Tony hadn’t either. Peter assured her that he had to be looking for them and had joked early on that, the next time Tony threatened to microchip him, Peter might actually let him but even he seemed slightly dubious these days.

“I think he’s asleep,” Flash said quietly, studying Peter’s slack face and the way his breaths come out in labored puffs. Michelle nodded, her fingers making amorphous shapes on Peter’s scalp. “He’s really starting to look like shit.”

“I know,” Michelle murmured, and she did. The lack of proper nutrients and enough calories had left Peter’s hair, skin and nails brittle and translucent, his body thin and waif-like. The purpling bags under his sunken eyes were edging closer to black with lack of restorative rest and his injuries, the number ever growing, were healing slower than ever. “I don’t know how much longer he can do this,” Michelle admitted, her eyes dry only because fluids were precious these days.

Flash hummed next to her, his hand curling around Peter’s calf and a muscle in his jaw twitching as he clenched and unclenched his teeth. “He has to,” he whispered back fervently. “Stark’s going to get us out any day now and then-”.

“He’s not getting us out Flash,” Michelle interrupted firmly. “If he was going to find us he would have by now.”

“So what the fuck are we supposed to do then?” Flash asked, angry and lost and hopeless. His voice rising but, luckily, not disturbing the tenuous sleep Peter had fallen into. Michelle shot him a look.

“We’ll have to get ourselves out,” she tells him and, ignoring the stunned and disbelieving expression on his face, rests her head back against the concrete wall.

Better take advantage of the rest while it lasted – she had some planning to do.


	2. The Broken Ribs Poked Our Lungs

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Same TW as the last chapter: Torture, Blood and Injury, Permanent Injury and Panic/Anxiety. Please be careful.

It starts like this:

MJ and Flash, hands cuffed to each other and Peter, wrists and ankles held to the wall by thick metal cuffs and dangling in a way that’s surely to leave his shoulders aching. MJ’s own head feels foggy and, though the only drugs she’s ever had were the few Percocets her doctor had prescribed after she broke her arm in middle school, recognizes the feeling. She feels dizzy when she attempts to sit up, Flash still limp on the floor next to her, and tries to orient herself.

They were in the school auditorium – MJ organizing their flash cards while Peter and Flash, that week’s unlucky sacrifices, cleaned up any trash left behind and moved all of the tables and chairs back to the closet. Both boys had been bickering with each other, Flash getting nastier and Peter clearly trying to reign himself in. MJ was almost about to step in, she remembers opening her mouth to say something and then…

…and then…

Well something must have happened then but what she doesn’t understand is why Peter’s danger sense didn’t pick it up, how they got captured in the first place.

Flash lets out a groan next to her and she feels him shifting. His eyes are glassy when he opens them and he seems to have a hard time focusing on anything. Michelle sympathizes and adjusts herself to face him a little better, her upper body swaying when she moves too quickly and she has to close her eyes and choke down bile through her clenched teeth for a moment.

“What the fuck?” Flash grunts, not even bothering trying to fully sit up, just propping himself up on his elbows to look around. His gaze lingers on her for only a moment before getting stuck on where Peter hangs on the wall and she can see his Adam’s apple move as he gulps. “What the _fuck_ ,” he repeats with more feeling and struggles to sit up only to fall back and nearly pull MJ with him when he realizes they are cuffed together.

“I don’t know,” MJ tells him as she helps him sit up, the two of them leaning on each other to help them stay steady. MJ glances over at Peter again but his chin still rests on his chest and he shows no signs of waking. “C’mon,” she tells Flash and drags them both, shuffling on hands and knees because neither one of them thinks they can stand, over to the wall where Peter is chained.

“Peter,” Michelle says, voice a little louder but still quieter than normal as she grabs his knee and shakes him. His head lolls on his chest but his eyes scrunch up a little before they open a minuscule amount, looking down at her in confusion.

“MJ?” His voice is hoarse and his pupils are blown wide, his eyes unfocused as they look at her. He tries to reach out for her and the cuff holding his left wrist clanks and, suddenly, Peter is wide awake.

“What-,” his head and shoulders shoot back to hit the wall and he struggles against the four-point restraints, his breathing becoming manic and his wrists starting to bleed where they scrape roughly against the harsh metal. “Where are we?” He sounds out of control, his expression nearly feral, and MJ remembers that he has a claustrophobia thing although she doesn’t know why.

“You need to calm down,” MJ tells him, reaching up the hand conjoined to Flash’s to join her other hand gripping Peter’s jeans and starts to pull herself unsteadily up using his clothes as handholds. Flash gets pulled along with her unwillingly and leans his head against the wall once they are standing, retching a few times and MJ tries to ignore him; she kinda wants to vomit too and her head is spinning but she has to calm Peter down before he mutilates himself more. “Peter calm down,” she says forcefully, grabbing his face in her free hand and resting their foreheads together. His breath hits her face in uneven pants but he makes an effort to match her breathing, slowly bringing himself down from his panic attack.

“What’s going on?” Peter asks her, eyes cutting over to where Flash is still leaning against the wall next to them but is now giving them his full attention. She’s impressed he’s managed to go so long without snarking at her or Peter but he did get into Midtown so maybe he’s got more common sense than MJ thought.

“I don’t know,” she mumbles against Peter’s lips, their faces still close together, and tries to keep it together. Peter can do nothing chained to the wall and Flash clearly isn’t as put together as she is right now. One of them has to keep their shit on lock so she guesses it’ll be her. “But we’ll figure it out, okay Pete? Just stay calm.”

“I’m calm,” he tells her but his voice is shaking. She doesn’t mention it.

“The better question might be _why_ did we get taken?” Flash finally says, bringing both of their attention back to him. He falters a little under their gazes but continues, “I mean my family has money so it could be a ransom thing but why would they take you two? And why chain up Parker?”

“I think it’s more likely that someone figured out Peter’s connection to Stark and wants to exploit it,” MJ says, eyes jumping back and forth between the two boys. Flash’s lips pull up in a sardonic smile.

“That internship bullshit?” He questions and lets out an aborted laugh. Neither Peter or MJ laugh and Peter’s face has drained completely of blood. Flash looks between the two of them and his smile drops. “It’s _not_ bullshit? Holy fuck Parker.”

“I’m just an intern its not like I can give them anything,” Peter says and he sounds unconvincing even to the two of them. “I _can’t_ ,” he says again, more to himself than to the two of them and then stiffens, his eyes cutting to the door behind them. “Someone’s coming,” he mutters and pulls fruitlessly on the cuffs again before letting his wrists go limp, hands bloody and fingertips softly purple from poor circulation.

“How do you-,” Flash starts but the door clangs open (no knob on the inside MJ notes) and all of them flinch back against the wall. The three men that enter are clad in all black tactical wear and masks, guns on their hips and night sticks clutched in their fists. The one in the middle holds nothing and just surveys them coldly for a moment before clapping his hands together.

“You have no idea how long we’ve been planning this Peter… or should I just call you Spidey?” And Michelle’s heart plummets down to her feet, goose bumps raising on her arms as her hair stands on end. Flash sputters quietly next to her and stares at Peter in unconcealed shock. Peter, for his part, just straightens up as much the chains will allow him to and glares at their captors.

“That would explain the vibranium then,” he says, testing the cuffs again. “Where’d you get it? Hydra’R’Us? Evil henchmen convention?” His quips are a little weaker than normal but his voice doesn’t tremble and he doesn’t break eye contact. The leader in the middle smiles behind his mask and pulls out his stun gun, shooting it at Peter’s chest and holding the button down to shock him as MJ and Flash scream in shock and watch as Peter’s body convulses.

The electricity stops and Peter pants, hanging weakly in his bonds, muscles twitching in after shocks. He lifts his head back up to glare and gets a short zap for his trouble.

“No need to be rude,” the man says, finger caressing the trigger in his hand. “We’re just trying to have a civilized conversation.”

“What do you want?” Peter grinds out, teeth clenched. Michelle tries to run her hand across his thigh next to her in comfort but he twitches away. The men in front of her don’t seem to notice.

“We just have a few questions about Stark. Answer and we’ll let you and your friends go scot free. Don’t and… well…,” he gives Peter another brief shock and he grunts. “I think you can figure it out.”

“I’m just an intern,” Peter tries and MJ can hear the desperation in his voice, “I get coffee and run memos I don’t-,”

“Don’t pull that shit with me,” the man says, “I’ve been watching you and Stark for months. He doesn’t trust just anyone in his private workshop nor would ‘just an intern’ have full access to his ridiculous tower and compound.”

“I won’t tell you anything,” Peter says firmly and the man across the room chuckles.

“We’ll see,” he says ominously, yanking on the wires attaching the sun gun to Peter and pulling them roughly from his skin. “Have a good night kiddos.” And with that he leaves the room, the closing door and locking mechanism echoing behind him. It’s quiet for all of five seconds and then:

“ _You’re_ Spider-Man?”

Peter groans and drops his chin back to rest against his chest. “Yes,” he answers simply as he rotates his wrists in the cuffs. “Not that its all that helpful right at the moment.”

“Are you okay?” Michelle asks him, fingers reaching up to run through his hair and cutting off Flash’s stream of unintelligible questions. She feels him trembling beneath her, his jaw muscles tightening and loosening in spasms.

“I’m fine,” he tells her and MJ chooses to not call him verbally on his shit but levels a short glare at him anyway. “I’ll heal,” he amends, looking up to examine his wrists. “Sorry I got us into this,” he tells them both seriously, looking beyond guilty and MJ, despite the situation, feels her chest fill with warmth for her dork boyfriend.

“Not your fault loser,” she tells him completely serious and leans forward to drop a kiss to his forehead. “It’s not like you asked for this.”

“I’m sorry,” Flash says, drawing their attention back to him, “can we just slow our rolls and scroll back here a little. You’re _Spider-Man_?” His voice gets high pitched on the end and Michelle almost feels bad for him. Poor bastard looks like his whole world has been blown apart.

“Yep,” Peter answers and she can hear a bit of his usual humor as an undercurrent to his words. “And you’re now sworn to secrecy so keep this off Instagram okay? Mr. Stark will have an ironclad NDA for you to sign when he rescues us so just be prepared for that.”

“Documents signed by minors aren’t admissible in a court of law,” Flash tells him smugly and Peter just rolls his eyes.

“Yeah, tell that to Iron Man and Nick Fury when you see them,” and this causes Flash’s smile to drop and MJ to let out a hysterical cackle. It lasts for just a moment before she cuts it off with a hiccup and wipes at her damp eyes, her body swaying a little as her adrenaline crashes. “Please go sit down,” Peter asks, eyes ping-ponging back and forth between her and Flash and the decrepit bed against the perpendicular wall.

She doesn’t want to, but Flash pulls her over since they are still cuffed together and they rest with their backs against the wall, legs stretched out in front of them and hanging over the edge. The mattresses is lumpy and smells like rot and mildew and MJ wrinkles her nose but she supposes they could have not given them a bed at all and decides she should probably be thankful for what they have.

“What do you think they want from you?” Flash asks after a few minutes of silence. Peter is hanging in his cuffs, no longer making any effort to hold his body up and his shoulders look stretched painfully, blood still running thickly down from his wrists. He tilts his head over to look at them, eyes tired from the drugs and, probably, from lack of food.

“I don’t know but, if I were to guess, they probably want info on the Avengers and Mr. Stark. I try to stay out of the majority of the classified stuff – I declined my position on the team when Mr. Stark offered so they don’t involve me in too much unless I ask or if its too big for me _not_ to be involved…,” he trails off. “Anyway Mr.Stark will have noticed I didn’t show up to movie night and he’ll be looking for us. He’ll find us,” Peter sounds so certain but Michelle still has a pit in her stomach. Shortly after this Peter passes out and Flash follows him leaving MJ alone in the dark, her heart still beating too fast in her chest as she watches over them both.

* * *

The first week Peter, verbally, gives as good as he gets. He never lashes out physically and always does what their captors want the first time they ask. He still spends most of his time that he is in the cell chained uncomfortably to the wall. After the first week someone, apparently, decides that Peter is weak enough from the constant abuse and malnourishment that he is no longer chained up after his sessions; just dropped unceremoniously onto the dirty floor and left for MJ and Flash to care for.

“I’m okay,” Peter promises them, smiling through gritted teeth and optimistic. “It won’t be that much longer,” he assures even as he pants through the pain of having his fingernails removed, his hands a bloody mess and limp at his sides. The promises and assurances are empty though: he isn’t okay and no one has found them yet. MJ begins to lose hope by, what she believes to be, day twelve but she acts otherwise for Peter’s sake. As strong as he is, he is slowly breaking.

“Do you lay eggs?” Flash asks, curious; a distraction to keep Peter’s focus off where Michelle is re-bandaging his finger tips and cleaning the blood from the fresh welts in his back (the whipping is a new addition to week two and a wholly unwelcome one). Peter splutters.

“Why does everyone always ask that?” He laments, trying to avoid tensing his sore trapezius muscles. Flash just shrugs.

“Well do you?”

“No!”

“Don’t get offended,” Flash says, hands held up in front of his face, palms facing Peter. “It’s not everyday you find out your friend is Spider-Man, I just happen to have a healthy academic interest.” MJ chuckles a little and no one mentions the fact that Flash wasn’t their friend seventeen (?) days ago.

Peter groans, most likely both from the question and because Michelle just ran her washcloth over a particularly deep cut from the whip, already crusted up for the most part but still weeping a small amount of blood and serum as it struggles to heal. “Well I don’t lay eggs and I made synthetic webs and web shooters. Everything else is natural though.”

Flash goes to ask another question and Michelle tunes him out. There can’t be any new questions for Flash to ask by this point, they’re going to have to come up with a better diversion tactic.

Well, at least Michelle thinks so but then they waterboard Peter the next day and he passes out as soon as the majority of the water is out of his lungs. It’s pretty much all downhill from there; Peter comes back to them half out of it if not out right passed out more often than not these days: no distraction needed.

“We’ve got to do something,” Flash says in the early hours of the next morning, both of them still sitting propped against the wall with Peter’s head in MJ’s lap and his legs in Flash’s. He got so little rest these days neither wanted to move and chance waking him up.

“I know,” Michelle tells him, her voice barely above a whisper. Peter had checked the room for cameras and recording equipment the second he was free enough to climb the walls and found nothing so they felt, relatively, safe talking about escape plans quietly. “We’ll have to do it soon or Peter won’t…” she trails off as both of them survey their friend. Michelle gulps and worries they’ve already waited too long.

“In two days,” Flash says firmly, his fingers fiddling with the leg of the loose sweats Peter is wearing. “Just enough time to come up with a plan that doesn’t suck too much ass.” Michelle snorts but nods her agreement. If they wait much longer than that Peter might not be up for anything.

“What happens in two days?” Peter asks groggily, not opening his eyes or moving from his position.

“We’re going to bust out of here loser,” she tells him, brushing his greasy fringe out of his eyes as he looks up at her. A series of emotions plays over his features, defiance first as she expected, a tinge of hopelessness and then he sets his jaw in determination.

“What’s the plan?” His voice is broken from all of the coughing the day before but stronger than she’s heard it in a while. She smiles, feral, and they get to work.

* * *

They have the majority of the plan nailed down by the time Peter is taken from them later and Michelle and Flash both twitch and fidget the whole time he’s gone, longer than the few hours apart they normally have him. They don’t have a window in the cell but the crack under the door is wide and some natural light leaks in from the window at the end of the hall. Peter is normally back by mid afternoon at the latest but the light coming through the door is clearly that of sunset.

“He’s usually back by now,” Flash says, voicing her exact thoughts and grinding his teeth. Michelle continues to pick at her cuticles; a habit she had broken in middle school that she has picked back up again. She has already bitten them down to the quick.

They continue to wait as the light fades even more and he anxiety ratchets; had their captors, somehow, heard their plans? We’re they taking it out on Peter?

Eventually the door creaks open and they dump Peter back on the floor of the cell, shutting the door behind them with a clang.

Michelle is by his side before he hits the ground, catching his head in her hands.

“Pete?” She asks, and she can hear the shakiness in her own voice, the concern. Flash drops next to them with the scant first aid kit they provided after Peter got an infection and plops it next to her, opening it deftly. “What did they do? How can I help?”

Peter shakes his head furiously in her grasp, his breaths coming way too fast as he hyperventilates and he curls tightly into a ball, his right arm cradled to his chest. The movement seems to jostle something and he gags, Flash barely gets the bucket under his face before Peter coughs up bile. She and Flash exchange nervous looks as Peter collapses back on the floor, head resting on the cool concrete and his back to Michelle’s thigh. His shirt is damp with cold sweat and his face is nearing gray.

“I can’t fix it if you won’t let me see it,” Michelle says and she cards her fingers through Peter’s mused curls, trying to relax him in any way she can. Flash just sits by Peter’s knees and stares.

A hysterical laugh bubbles out of Peter’s throat and she exchanges a worried glance with Flash. “Fix it?” Peter questions, struggling to sit up. “And how to you plan to fix this?” He thrusts his hand out to her and Michelle nearly gags herself: his middle and ring fingers are missing, right down to the last knuckle – two bloody holes left in their place. Darkly, Michelle thinks that someone must have terrible humor since they removed the exact fingers he uses to activate his webs.

She shows none of this on her face though, she schools her expression into something calm, not rising to Peter’s panicked taunts and gently (oh so very gently because _holy fuck_ his fingers) pulls his hand into her lap by the wrist. “I plan to pack it with the Neosporin and wrap it so, when we get back, Stark can make you some bionic fingers and you won’t have to worry about the stumps getting infected.”

Peter flinches violently but does back down, lying quietly on the floor while she examines the remaining stumps; they’ve already clotted closed which is nothing short of a miracle with Peter’s dwindling and unreliable healing so she decides not to reopen them and cause him more pain by scrubbing them out. Instead, she hold out her hand to Flash and he deposits the tube of triple antibiotic cream into her palm followed shortly after by a non-stick pad and their lone ace bandage. Flash, himself, has turned a little green around the gills and is doing his best to avoid looking at Peter’s hand.

“This probably won’t feel the best,” she tells Peter as she squeezes out all that’s left of the cream (such a small amount, too small for what she needs but it has to suffice) onto the non-stick pad. “Flash come hold his wrist still for me. Peter,” she says, carefully brushing his too long bangs out of his eyes – she tries not to get lost in the hopelessness she sees him trying to hide there, tries to be strong for him, “I need you to hold this arm as still as you can.”

Peter nods, the remaining muscles in his arm that his body hasn’t broken down for nutrients tensing and relaxing in spurts but his hand remains perfectly limp and still in Flash’s grip. “Take a deep breath,” Michelle tells him and then firmly presses the pad to the stumps, tunneling in on her task and ignoring the aborted scream that he cuts off by shoving his free knuckle into his mouth, ignoring the way his face goes ashen, ignoring the way his muscles go limp as he finally, blessedly, passes out. She has to get this done quick, she doesn’t want him waking up before its done.

The ace bandage is long, thank God, so she wraps loops around his hand multiple times to cushion the stumps before starting to wrap it down his wrist to provide security before tying it off. She examines the wrap and finds that it should be sturdy enough to hold for the next few days and lets out a sigh of relief. Flash, nearly as pale as Peter, carefully arranges Peter’s hand so its resting on his stomach before stumbling over to the alcove that holds their steel toilet to retch up the meager meal they had been offered in the middle of the day. MJ is tempted to join him but chokes it down – she needs to hold onto all the calories she can get.

“Fuck,” Flash finally says as he stumbles back around the corner to lean heavily against the wall, his fingers shaking as he combs them through his hair in an aborted movement. He studies where MJ still sits on the floor, with Peter’s head now resting in her lap, and opens and closes his mouth a few more times before saying ‘fuck’ again but with more feeling.

MJ just hums in response.

They stare at each other in silence for a few more moments and MJ can see what’s going through Flash’s head, can read it in his flexing jaw muscles, his worried expression, the lines around his eyes. It’s the same thing going through her own.

Peter’s their muscle – how are they going to get out now?

* * *

Peter had dealt with many injuries as Spider-Man. He’s been shot, strangled, crushed, electrocuted, had more than a few bones in his body broken. He’s used to the pain, he’s built up a tolerance.

But this.

Peter thinks its probably the mental aspect that gets him the most. Like he said, he can handle the pain, but the guilt? The agony he feels when Tony doesn’t find him within a week? The way his chest stutters and his stomach clenches when he feels betrayed that no one has found him?

Yeah, that’s a bit harder to come to terms with.

He has no idea who has taken them but he does know why. They know he’s Spider-Man, they have images of him without the mask on the rooftop of the tower, Tony’s arm around his neck and smiles on both of their faces after a successful mission together. They also have images of him at dinner with Tony, taking a walk through the park after Pepper kicked them both out of the lab, having Starbucks with a disgruntled Happy Hogan sitting across from them.

They know how close he and Tony are, how close he is with all of the Avengers really, and they know they can use that to their advantage.

The questions are basic at first: they want to know Tony’s basic schedule, when he may be at the tower versus the compound, where the rest of the team may be at any given moment and who lives on base. He refuses to give answers to any of those questions and earns himself a few punches with brass knuckles for his troubles.

From there the questions escalate. They want override codes for FRIDAY, knowledge about the Iron Man armor, how the Arc reactor works, back doors into Tony’s and SHIELDs subsystems.

Peter knows some of these things but some he doesn’t. He doesn’t tell them anyway.

After a few days of this they (whoever _they_ are) decide to stop wasting their breath on him and start taking pictures and recording videos. Peter knows exactly who they are for and does his level best not to scream or beg or cry. Instead, every session when the red recording light comes on, he makes hard eye contact with the lens and firmly tells Tony (and whoever else is watching) to not give anything up.

It works for a while, the not screaming and crying and begging, but Peter is very quickly finding his limits.

Regardless of all this, Tony (or more likely Natasha who is the only one of the Avengers who has any hope of corralling Tony Stark) never gives anything up. He can tell this by the anger of his captors, the way the ratchet up the pain day by day.

“Change of plan kid,” one of the masked men who roughs him up says after they strap him into the metal chair that’s bolted to the floor. He doesn’t elaborate more than that but Peter’s observant even in his current state and notices the conspicuous absence of the normally ever-present camera and his stomach drops to the floor.

When they slice off his first finger with a miniature guillotine and nest it in a wooden shipping box Peter gets the idea; the videos clearly aren’t doing much so they plan to up the stakes. He thinks they’re done once the first finger is wrapped carefully and placed in packing peanuts and he deliriously starts to beg and struggle when they force his ring finger out and thread it through next.

He doesn’t bother holding in his screams after that.

Some indefinite time later he’s shown shaky camera footage: someone has dropped the package off at the reception desk of SI and it doesn’t take long before Happy appears to retrieve it. The man looks drawn, his shoulders slumped and his normally immaculate black suit rumpled. The video end with him tucking the box under his arm and entering the private elevator in the lobby and Peter knows that Tony has seen the inside of the package by now. Has seen Peter’s amputated fingers.

At this thought he leans sideways and gags until his stomach expels the small amount of bile that’s left, burning his esophagus the whole way up and stinging his sore nose and cracked lips. The guards around him laugh and leave him sitting in the dark, his fingers no longer dripping blood as he feels his skin struggling to heal. The pain is still breath-taking and he struggles not to dissociate away from it all. He fails and falls into the abyss.

* * *

MJ is quiet as Peter croaks all of this out to her and Flash in the middle of the night, the three of them squished awkwardly onto the small bed and huddling together for warmth, Peter in the middle, and she begins to adjust their plans. Peter has kept his right arm tucked up close to him, unable or unwilling to move his remaining fingers. As weak as he is, she and Flash had been counting on his ability to incapacitate the guards and take their weapons but she doesn’t see how that can happen now when he’s down a limb and shaky with blood loss.

They sit in heavy silence for a few minutes after Peter trails off before he takes a shuddering breath and says ‘I’m sorry,’ in maybe the most broken and desolate tone she’s ever heard and her heart clenches. Their only light comes from the very dim security bulb in the corner but she can see Peter’s resolve wavering, she can see him giving up.

“Don’t be,” Michelle tells him firmly, wrapping his hand around his bicep since she can’t take his right hand in hers. “It’s just a set back, we can figure something else out.”

Flash scoffs on the other side of Peter and rolls his eyes a little at her optimism and she glares at him over Peter’s head, he at least has the decency to look chagrined even if he doesn’t offer his own platitudes. “Don’t worry about it Pete,” she tells him firmly, pulling his head down to rest on her shoulder and trying to help him get comfortable enough to sleep, “Flash and I will figure something out tomorrow. You just need to worry about conserving your strength.”

She can tell Peter doesn’t believe her, can feel his muscles twitching against her side, but he doesn’t argue with her and, eventually, falls into a restless sleep.

“I hope you’ve got a hell of a back up plan,” Flash whispers to her much later, after she thought he was asleep. MJ just hums, noncommittal, and tries not to give away the fact that she’s got nothing and no way to save them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am blown away at all the support from you guys! I posted a tiny little prologue and you still liked it? What?? Thanks for all the comments, kudos and bookmarks! I hope this chapter lived up to your expectations!
> 
> See you next week!

**Author's Note:**

> It’s short, I know, but let me know what you think! This is the first chapter fic I’m doing in this category and its the first one that I’ve truly finished which is exciting. The next chapters are much longer, I promise!


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